Draw Me Close: A Memoir blurs the worlds of live performance, virtual reality and animation to create a vivid memoir about the relationship between a mother and her son in the wake of her terminal-cancer diagnosis. Weaving theatrical storytelling with cutting-edge technology, the project takes a deceptively simple and humanistic approach to the immersive medium: it allows the audience member to experience life as Jordan inside a live, animated world.

Created by award-winning playwright and filmmaker Jordan Tannahill, described as 'the future of Canadian theatre' by Canada's NOW Magazine, Draw Me Close: A Memoir is the first major co-production between the NFB and the NT's Immersive Storytelling Studio, in collaboration with multidisciplinary creative studio All Seeing Eye, with illustrations by Teva Harrison. The experience is a first for the form, integrating live performance and VR into one seamless narrative, with audience as performer - an actor in the immersive world.

This spellbinding immersive experience is brought to life through live performance combined with a real-time motion capture system, Orion, which utilises HTC Vive. This room-scale VR experience transforms an ordinary room into a 3D virtual world. The audience member enters the performance space and puts on a VR headset to become Jordan, navigating seamlessly through both physical and virtual environments. As they walk through the physical set, they use the motion-tracked controllers to manipulate objects and take action in the virtual space. They are guided by Jordan's mother, played by an actress. As the mother engages with the audience member in the physical world, her movements are translated by motion capture into the virtual world.

The world premiere of Draw Me Close: A Memoir, co-created by Jordan Tannahill, the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) and The National Theatre of Great Britain (NT), has been selected to compete in 'Venice Virtual Reality' at the 74th Venice International Film Festival - the first ever competition for films made in virtual reality at a major film festival.

Venice VR will run from August 29 to September 5.